Early determination of pregnancy can be very important to the health and well-being of a woman. For example, knowing that she is pregnant, a woman can make life-style adjustments that will protect her own health as well as that of her unborn child, such as stopping smoking and drinking, changing dietary choices, and so forth.
While various home pregnancy tests are available to help with the determination of pregnancy, it is typically considered prudent to have positive results confirmed by a health care professional. One way that health care professionals determine pregnancy is by detecting the presence of a fetus with radiological testing, such as ultrasound. Diagnostic ultrasound operates by directing high frequency sound waves (ranging from about 2 MHz to about 9 MHz) into the body of a patient using a probe, e.g., an ultrasound transducer. Certain transducers also detect echoes received from the reflection of the sound waves at tissue interfaces, the relative strength and other characteristics of such echo being measured. Variations in these echoes are created by the differing densities of the tissues and structures. A sonographic image is produced by depicting representations of the echo variations.
Because a fetus is very small at the time when a pregnancy might be first suspected, the fetus may be very difficult to detect unless the health care professional has some degree of experience with both the procedure that is conducted and the particular ultrasound equipment that is used. In addition to the requisite technical expertise, the health care professional must also be sensitive to the needs of the patient, as the determination of pregnancy and the intimacy of the examination tend to affect the patient's emotional state.
Therefore, it is well for the health care professional to train such that the technical aspects of ultrasound may be performed with ease. One device developed to facilitate such training is a radiological phantom, which are manufactured, anatomical replicas—to a greater or lesser extent—of a portion of the patient to be examined.
Unfortunately, conventional phantoms for gynecological or obstetric procedures only work with transducers or other equipment that is specifically designed and dedicated for use with the phantom and not suitable or approved for in vivo examination. While the health care professional is able to gain some experience using such conventional phantoms, the experience is limited because the same equipment is not necessarily used during in vivo examination. Some of these phantoms are extremely complex and require a level of maintenance that is not practical for some training environments. Further, some phantoms are extremely expensive, and thus are cost prohibitive to some facilities.
What is needed, therefore, is an ultrasound phantom that reduces issues such as those represented above, at least in part.